If you were watching any of the coverage from Minneapolis about what happened Wednesday night, you know perfectly well that what's happening on the streets there. No matter what it may look like, is actually a quest for justice.
It's long overdue search for answers by legitimately frustrated protesters who, if we are going to be honest about it, have been oppressed for so long they can no longer stand idle. What you're seeing in Minneapolis is democracy in its purest form.
CNN REPORTER, CREW FREED AFTER BEING ARRESTED WHILE COVERING GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS
Effectively, it's a political rally. Here's was a representative scene last night.
Unidentified male: This is literally the craziest stuff I've ever seen right now. This is Target right now.
"Now, wait a second," you may be thinking. "That didn't look like a political rally. Those people look like looters. They were smashing cash registers with hammers to steal other people's money."
Well, yes, technically they were doing that. And yes, as a factual matter, they were smashing the cash registers because they had already stolen everything else in the store. So no, it doesn't look like conventional political activism.
But before you judge them, keep in mind, it could have been far worse. It's not like they were doing something immoral, like protesting Gretchen Whitmer's coronavirus lockdowns in Michigan. That would have been a different story.
Joy Reid, MSNBC host: Black people's right to protest is secondary to white people's right to be an armed protest with long guns, terrifying-looking war weapons.
Chris Hayes, MSNBC host: This is how the protest of George Floyd's death ended up. Police in riot gear, flooding the streets with teargas and shooting rubber bullets into the crowd.
Another example of how this pandemic has been a kind of black light, exposing all the inequalities in American life.
Chris Cuomo, CNN anchor: That's the meme that's going around right now with the cops, with the black kid on the ground saying hello to the white guy in camo with the AK-47 and the mask who was protesting in Michigan. That when it's white people with guns and they're out and they're angry and their faces with cops --
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Don Lemon, CNN anchor: I didn't see any of that.
Cuomo: Everybody is civil.
Eddie Glaude, Jr.. chairman of African-American Studies at Princeton University and MSNBC contributor: It says if some people are accorded the rights of citizenship and other folks are just expected to be obedient.
Peaceful -- it ended up in the [Michigan] state capitol, Craig, with automatic weapons and they were treated with kid gloves.
Oh, you see, it's not at all like those fascists in Michigan. In Minneapolis, there is a reason people are doing it -- a legitimate reason, even the cash register masters. They were simply smashing the cash register, so relax.
In any given year, police kill more white suspects, armed and unarmed, than black suspects. And that's a fact, by the way. It's not political propaganda. It's probably true. Yet no one on television will ever say that because that fact threatens the scams they're working.
By the way, the cash registers deserved it anyway. As Joy Reid suggests on MSNBC, they're probably European cash registers and therefore complicit in oppression.
Reid: Europeans came to this country to get away from being subjects of the kings in Europe. But what they did was they created for themselves sort of a kingdom -- every man a king, but the subjects are black people.
These armed white men who can get armed up and walk into a state capitol [in Michigan], and that's okay and the police are benign. They don't even act afraid.
But let black people show up and protest the death of an innocent black man, and suddenly, you know what, we need tear gas. We've got to go full force.
Charlottesville, the same thing. The police were there to protect the people who were marching as Neo-Nazis, not to protect the black people.
So who watches Joy Reid, you may be wondering? Well, it turns out the people who run Minneapolis apparently watch Joy Reid.
As their city crumbled around them, local leaders huddled in deliberation. They emerged with a plan. They declared that racism is "a national emergency."
CNN immediately trumpeted the development as if it were breaking news. Meanwhile, mobs in downtown Minneapolis kept looting stores, kept burning. Normal people of all colors huddled indoors, terrified.
No one bothered to explain how any of this was connected. How exactly does racism have anything to do with looting ATM machines or stealing PlayStations from Target? It's confusing.
What we do know is that riots are now acceptable because racism is a national emergency. That's the new standard. Okay. So now that we're in a state of national emergency, the question is, what is not acceptable? What's not okay? Anything?
Here's what some of the quote "protesters" were chanting last night in Minneapolis.
Unidentified female: Shoot the white folk. Shoot the white folk.
So, you're not going to see that clip on CNN. How come? It is simple. Facts like this -- and there are a lot of them -- challenge the carefully constructed storyline that our leaders richly profit from. Therefore those facts must be suppressed.
Things are falling apart in Minneapolis. And as they collapse, our leadership class seems thrilled. They're doing nothing to calm racial division. In fact, they're eagerly stoking it.
For example, practically every day, we're told that white cops are a mortal threat to black men and some are, obviously. It's what started this whole thing. A black man was killed by the police. It's awful.
But what are the national numbers on this? Well, actually, we know the answer. A study from last year found that white police officers were less likely to shoot and kill nonwhite suspects than nonwhite police officers were.
In any given year, police kill more white suspects, armed and unarmed, than black suspects. And that's a fact, by the way. It's not political propaganda. It's probably true. Yet no one on television will ever say that because that fact threatens the scams they're working.
Eddie Glaude, Jr. might be the living embodiment of this phenomenon. If you've ever wondered whether yelling racist at the people you want things from its an effective business plan, Eddie Glaude is living proof that indeed it is.
By regularly screaming "racist," Glaude has been able to ride a mediocre academic career all the way to an endowed professorship at Princeton. It's a job with such high pay and so few actual requirements that Glaude can dress like a British lord, and spend much of his day shuttling by limo between cable news hits.
Talk about a sweet gig. As long as Eddie Glaude continues to denounce people as racist -- the right people -- he can probably keep that job forever. So naturally, Eddie Glaude has no interest in explaining how exactly racism makes people loot Target. It just does, okay? And if you disagree with that premise, you're a racist yourself. So shut up.
Minneapolis has decided to just let their riot happen and damn the consequences.
As Glaude told viewers in MSNBC, it's all about the "context."
Glaude: Most human beings' natural inclination when they feel wronged, when they feel put upon, when they're living under oppressed conditions, is to lash out. And this is the history of the modern West, the history of the world. And so part of what we have to do is try to understand the context of what led to what happened.
Oh, "the context" -- and squint your eyes as you say "the context." Of course, there's a context to setting fire to McDonald's, says Professor Glaude. It's interesting.
So, you've got to wonder how would Eddie Glaude, Jr. respond if something like this happened to him. If looters descended on his house, would Glaude gently describe them as "protesters" as they made off with his Hermes necktie collection? If thugs with bandanas on their faces smashed the windshield of his BMW with rocks, would Eddie Glaude call the police? Or would calling the police be racist?
Just how long, in other words, could Edie Glaude maintain his fraudulent racial justice shtick in the face of the kind of violence that he routinely excuses on television? We're thinking not very long. It's just a guess. Let's hope Eddie Glaude is never tested on that, certainly, anytime soon. Let's hope none of us are tested.
The problem with outbreaks of mob violence is you really have no idea where they're going next. You can't know. Sometimes they subside; often, they metastasize. They're unpredictable, and they are mortally dangerous, and that's why you don't encourage them.
In St. Paul, signs have appeared in store windows announcing, "This is a black-owned business." In other words, we're the right skin color, spare us.
What does that tell you? Imagine if you saw a sign saying "white-owned business" in windows. You would be horrified and you should be. You'd know it was a race riot. We've had a lot of those in this country through the years and there is nothing worse than that.
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But Minneapolis has decided to just let their riot happen and damn the consequences. Watch the city's police chief explain why he doesn't plan to do anything at all to stop rioters.
Reporter: So, what you're saying is it's too dangerous for police to directly confront the looters, so you've made the decision to maybe let that site go for now and focus on keeping the rest of the neighborhood as safe as possible?
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo: Absolutely. Our officers are being -- have been through several hours here, Molotov cocktails thrown at them, rocks and other projectiles. And so obviously their safety is paramount, and so I don't want them going into an area where they're at risk of harm themselves.
Obviously, the safety of officers is paramount announces the chief. The interviewer says nothing.
But in fact, it's not at all obvious. In fact, it's perfectly backward. Society's first concern is the safety of citizens, especially the weakest citizens. That's why we have police in the first place -- to protect people who cannot protect themselves, the public. Not everyone wants to do that job and that's fine. Do something else. But we can't allow this.
Imagine if the Secret Service adopted the same attitude. Sorry, I can't protect the president today, too risky. How about the military? We'd love to repel the invasion, but unfortunately, we might get hurt. Our apologies.
Things would fall apart. Things are falling apart in Minneapolis. And as they collapse, our leadership class seems thrilled. They're doing nothing to calm racial division. In fact, they're eagerly stoking it.
The New York Times wrote a piece Thursday morning with the title, "How White Women Use Themselves as Instruments of Terror." The subhead read this way: "There are too many noosed necks, charred bodies and drown souls for them to deny knowing precisely what they are doing."
Wait a second. "Them"? What "they" are doing? Keep in mind, this didn't run in Louis Farrakhan's free weekly. This was The New York Times, this country's most important newspaper, the high temple of American liberalism. The New York Times is telling you that every single person of a certain color and sex has a hand in genocide.
They are stained by bloodguilt. They are murderers, every one of them. What do you do to murderers? You know the answer.
It's hard to believe our leaders are actually talking like this. But they are -- a lot and loudly. And if they keep it up, things will not end well. Yet, they show no signs of slowing down.
Watch as two of CNN's leading lights get to the bottom of the national emergency we're living through. They've discovered who is responsible for it -- 100 percent responsible. They know who is guilty. Here's a hint: It's an entire racial group.
Don Lemon: It is not incumbent upon black people to stop racism, to stop this. It is incumbent upon people who hold the power in this society to help to do that, to do the heavy lifting. And guess who that is? Who is that, Chris?
Chris Cuomo: White people.
The funny thing is, as we often point out, these are the very same people who claim they're fighting your racism. Okay.
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But the problem is much bigger this time than mere hypocrisy. We're very used to that. This problem is far more ominous.
Here it is in three sentences. There are 320 million of us in this country. A lot of us are very different from one another, yet we all have to live together. In fact, most of us want to live together. But suddenly our leaders are making that dangerously difficult.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on May 28, 2020.